what stuff did you take that was useless/ chucked out

[giggly]

We are clearing the house out for moving to Perth in a few months. We have put some stuff into storage to make the house less cluttered for selling. The idea is when the house is sold to ship out or charity whats left. But just realised how much lovely sentimental antiques crap we have and dont know if I should just send pretty much everthing within reason and get rid of it when we are there if it is not needed.

Part of me thinks that the more familiar our home is the dc will be more settled. Not talking about huge amount of extra shipping costs.

This from the women who once moved 2 bin bags with rotting rubbish into new home by accident.

Can I ask about flying over with foodstuffs? On the way over here dh and I didn't bring any but I'm thinking of asking his sister to bring some malt loaf and Bird's instant custard (just a couple of things we've missed) - is it okay as long as she declares them?

If you are going to Perth, there's a shop in the CBD in London Court which sells British foods, so you may be able to get a few things there.

We had Australian friends move back and they were buying baby gear and books like crazy before they went. Prices are horrendous. You won't have the same choice of books too, so if you like more niche books like poetry, stock up before you go.

Take everything you can. FYI though, your fridge might not be able to cope with the heat. Fridges sold in Australia are built to withstand higher ambient temperatures. Take it, but bear in mind you might have to replace it.

The deal with wicker is that (if I remember correctly) it can have bugs within the wood & Australia are very careful about letting anything in that may carry a risk to the flora or fauna.

Also as an aside, when you book flights = We came over with Singapore & got a huge baggage allowance for all 3 of us, as we were emigrating. Not every airline offers this, so make sure that YOU call the airlines before booking to find our what you get.

Malaysian (who we considered due to cost) were at the time (2006) charging about 17gbp a KILO over & above their usual allowance. Singapore gave us 40ks each & charged us nothing extra!! They were also more lenient on the hand luggage too.

We came over with Emirates who have a standard 30kg limit and 7kg hand luggage each.

The higher baggage allowance, we were told, was only available if you were flying out on a one way ticket.

As we did, MrsDistinctly. You need to show your visas at check in. OP said she is coming on s PR (permanent resident) visa & staying forever, so I thought the info maybe useful.

Sorry, wasn't meaning to be snappy. Just meant that not everyone who comes over, even on PR, doesn't plan to go back at some point in the first yr and therefore would not be eligible.

(I tried, and failed to get the higher allowance is all)

That's OK!

SA didn't stipulate one way ticket. Just that we needed to be making our first trip over on a PR visa. They noted it in the passports with a stamp & said that it was a one time thing on the PR visa.

I guess all airlines are different tho. Malaysian also wouldn't have let us take the stroller & car seat as part of our allowance,. they wanted extra money to carry them. Where as with SA, they were in dd's allowance. So even though SA were (slightly) more cost wise,. and we had to wait 2 extra days to leave the UK & have a 14hr wait at Singapore, we went with them. Because it worked out much better & cheaper in the long run.

Also OP, if you do travel via Singapore and have a long wait for the connecting flight, check out the transit hotel in the airport. We had a 14hr wait, but we all had showers, slept & felt ready for the next leg of the trip. It also helped with jetlag too.

sorry slipped away for a few weeks.
Lots of really good advice. We were not going to bring the big electrical things like washing machine, fridge etc but I guess for the difference in the container space would make sense.
We are coming on a PR and are not planning to come back to uk at all, I will make Oz work for us.But failing that will not mind if I have to ship everything back again.
We will fly Emirates as we live 10 mins from Glasgow airport and I hate flying into Gatwick/Heathrow. I have flown with them lots to Oz and highly rate them.
Our shipping company told us not to take the garden furniture or trampoline as they would need to be scrubbed to within an inch.
I thought it would be more exciting for our dds to buy new/second hand stuff there.

Forgot to say we have a few hundred books which we are taking and will probally sell them on second hand.

Forgot to say we have a few hundred books which we are taking and will probally sell them on second hand.

To all those concerned about the price of books - buy a Kindle. I had a similar problem when I moved to South Africa -could only afford to buy from second hand shops and that was still more expensive than new books in the UK. I got a Kindle last year and it is the best thing I ever did - saved a fortune and no need to lug boxes of books all round the world

For the cost of a full container vs the cost of buying all your things new, take your stuff. Our stuff is only fairly cheap IKEA stuff, but we're still taking most of it as to buy it new would cost thousands, and the cost of shipping it all in a 20' container is £3400.